Honeybee Products Information

Honey is the substance made when the nectar and sweet deposits from plants are gathered, modified and stored in the honeycomb by honey bees. The definition of honey stipulates a pure product that does not allow for the addition of any other substance. This includes, but is not limited to, water or other sweeteners.

The choice between liquid or crystallized honey is a matter of personal preference, if however you want the privilege of a pure product it is important to consider that every heating (to bring it from the crystallized to the liquid state) superior to 100° damages the quality of the product.

The honey during the extraction is liquid, but then, in the greater part of the cases, in varying from a few weeks to some months it crystallizes (that is, it solidifies). This is a natural process. The honey that remains liquid for a long time without intervention are those honeys that contain more fructose. For example the locust tree and the chestnut tree and honeydew.

Floral: Indicates the primary flowers from which bees gathered nectar to produce the honey.

When we speak of mono-floral honey we intend it to describe a honey originating mainly from a sole botanical origin and its results from the point of view of the composition and which is very representative in its organic and microscopic characteristics. In other words, for a honey to be considered mono-floral it has to be recognizable as such from the point of view of the lab analysis for those characteristics most important to us, those being aspect, perfume and taste.

It is gathered by the bees but it is not used for the elaboration of honey, but as a protein food for the juvenile forms of larva. In the honey it is present only very small quantities as an accidental component and it provides the honey with certain characteristics

Honey should be kept in dry storage at room temperature.

All honey will crystallize after extended storage. Honey can be re-liquefied by placing the container in warm water, or by microwaving the honey in small portions (1 cup) in a microwave-safe container. Microwave on high for approximately 2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds until the crystals dissolve. Do no boil or scorch honey.

Honey has been known through history to be a notoriously conservable product: this affirmation must not be taken however as an absolute, because regarding other analogous products, time does not create an advantage to the product. The first problem we encounter is that of the possibility of fermentation. This alteration intervenes in the turn of some/many weeks when into the honey is introduced an excessive amount of water; this happens if it has not been brought to a good degree of "maturation" before the extraction from the beehive. A fermented honey is not however, harmful to our health, but it is surely a degraded product and it must be thrown out. This problem is easily recognizable. The Italian Law forbids the direct sale of fermented honey and is therefore very rare to find commercially produced honey in this state. It is possible to find some particular and rare honeys that, produced in spring (arboreal Heather or some fruit trees) or in the late autumn like Ivy, that inevitably introduce an elevated level of humidity. In this case it is advisable to prevent the alteration with the right temperature in the refrigerator. All honeys, even those with optimal compositions, are instead subject to another type of slow and progressive alteration, which is, even though nearly maintaining unchanged alimentary characteristics, has a tendency to deactivate its biological components and attenuate its aromas. This ineluctable aging of the product happens with proportional speed to the maintenance temperature. Nearly negligible under the 50° F it changes quicker the higher the temperature. Two months at 86° F damages the product as much as one year and a half of a temperature of 68°F. Even in this case, honey never becomes harmful to the health, but it loses the peculiar characteristics of a fresh product. If it is of recent production, the healthier it is and the better the taste; but a year old product, well preserved well can also be called fresh. The greater part of the honest producers point out two years from the harvest the preferential period of consumption.

In the case of a particular honey, for which it is hard to foresee the provisioning in the future seasons, a producer may also make provision for a few years, preserving it however to the temperature of a wine cellar (inferior to 68°F). Direct light damages the product at least as much the heat, and it is therefore it is profitable to preserve it in glass jars inside cardboard boxes or in closed lockers. It finally it is necessary to watch out for the system of closure of containers, honey tends to absorb the damp (and odors!) from the environment.

The image of the honey is that of a dense liquid, bright, of amber color. This, for a long time have been the market characteristics, so much so that what didn't correspond to this stereotype was regularly refused. Today we almost all know that all the honeys are liquid during the extraction, but then, in the greatest part of the cases, in varying from a few days to some months, the crystallization begins. This is a natural happening, that doesn't involve variations other than of aspect. It develops in a variety of ways depending on the different products, and according to the composition, and therefore of the origin, of the temperature of maintenance and other factors, be they mechanic and/or physical. It is simply due to the fact that the greater part of the honeys contain more or less dissolved sugars, of how much it can be firmly maintained in the solution (solution under vacuum). The natural evolution in almost all the honeys is therefore that in which the excess sugars, glucose, falls above all into the crystal form. The crystallization is faster in the honeys richest in glucose (sunflower). the honey poor in glucose and rich in fructose (the locust, the chestnut and the honeydew), instead, in these it doesn't intervene, or it develops late and in an incomplete way (veiled or doughy honeys, but don't compact). Fresh temperatures (57 - 60.8° F) accelerate the process, while very low temperatures (from freezer) or warm (summer) stop it.

The crystals always start to form where they find a "grip", for example a grip, a solid particle or the bottom and walls of the jar. Also shaking the product can promote the formation of crystals in a liquid honey and to accelerate it in a honey already in the process of crystallization.

Once crystallized the honey has different characteristics according to as the different factors that are combined: this is why there are honeys with more or less homogeneous aspect, coarse or small crystals, compact or creamy consistence. These differences can signal, to an experienced eye, the origin and "history" of the honey, but they are not able, given the complexity of the phenomenon to be taking it as an absolute reference to identify the higher or lower genuineness of the honey.

The choice between liquid or crystallized it is a matter of personal preference; if however you would like the privilege of a good product it is important to remember that out of the productive season, the only liquid honeys that are maintained firmly the honey from the locust, the chestnut and the honeydew. In the others the presentation to the liquid state depends on a thermal treatment of re-melting and is known that heating it produces a loss of some natural characteristics of the honey.

The idea of "integral virgin honey" was born in Italy for distinguishing a variety of honey with superior qualitative characteristics to those anticipated by the law for the denomination of base (honey). According to the discipline that defines its production, virgin integral honey is a traditional product, extract by centrifuge, with a perfect level oh humidity to guarantee a long natural life. It has not suffered treatments that would modify the proper characteristics the extracted fresh honey and, particularly it has never suffered high temperatures, superior to 40° C. It comes preserved so to maintain unchanged its composition and introduces therefore the composite and organic characteristic proper of its natural origin and of the particular procedures of production and following preservation.

The Italian Law establishes that the virgin integral honey commercialized with an indication related to the botanical origin will posses determined composition requisites that allow to guarantee the real mono-floral characteristics.

This indication was anticipated by a national law on the marketing of honey that has been in vigor between 1982 and 1998, but it has been suppressed for incompatibility with the norms of the European community, to which Italy has had to conform itself. The producers of quality honey have introduced a question to the European Community because this denomination is recognized to European level as a "Guaranteed Traditional Specialty", a system that allows the consumer to recognize the products that owe their special and peculiar characteristically details to the traditional mode of preparation.

The question of recognition of the virgin integral honey has been published on the official Gazette of the European Community on March 12th 2002. When this denomination is officially recognized the consumer will have a further tool to judge quality of honey.

Traditionally there has been more proprieties attributed to honey than those we have spoken of; how much of the tradition that has been handed down to us confirmed by the modern science? A part of the traditional activities may be explainable in cultural terms more than the scientific. The honey, in fact, has represented, for millennia, the only assembled sugar-food: its objective characteristics of uniqueness, rarity, high attractiveness and high food value have well soon brought, in the history of the humanity, to consider it legacy of the divine and we can add to that the symbolic, magical and therapeutic meanings to its use in the human field. The wealth of the fructose gives honey some characteristics that other sweet foods don't have. This sugar is the greatest sweetener and gives the long lasting energetic effect of the honey: the glucose is immediately burnt while fructose first suffers a small transformation and stays therefore available for the organism for a longer time. Fructose is endowed with emollients, moisturizers and sweeteners that can be useful form the oral cavity to the throat, stomach and bowel. It has a mild laxative effect. It is essential for the disposal of the toxic and harmful substances, derived by the metabolism or ingested, and accumulates in the liver. Taking into consideration only the sugar composite we find therefore numerous advantages of honey in comparison to the sugar.

Some exclusive characteristics of honey finally find an explanation in its characteristics which have been scientifically studied. Among these, the most interesting is the biological activity is that antibacterial. It has been shown that the antibacterial activity of the diluted honey would be due to the action of the contained glucose-oxidase. This enzyme, inactive in honey as is, it produces, under particular conditions of dilution, oxygenated water and glycolic acid initiating from the glucose and its accumulation of oxygenated water (subsequently destroyed) to confer antibiotic activity the honey solution. This mechanism would have the biological activity to protect the developing honey from microbial attack (when the protection systems are not efficient because of the high sugar concentration). Besides this antibiotic system, there are present other substances of different nature, that possess this same type of activity (polifenoli). This complex of substances and activity are at the base of many of the traditional home uses for honey (for example in the case of colds, flu, sore throat and also the external uses on burns, sores and wounds).

Many are the substances that have been identified in honey: however, at his point not all have been identified. We know, for example, that honey, besides the sugars it contains a little of all nutritional principles, even if in such small amounts as to not be an important nutritional value. We know that it contains acids, mineral salts and enzymes. We know little on the substances that derive from plants that bees have produced form nectar and are present in such small quantities and bestow the honey those particular characteristics of color and aroma. What we know, or we now realize, on the honey composition of the and the activity of its elements that it points out to us that honey is a complex food, integrally natural, and contributes to a more balanced nutrition and health balance, even if we are not able to attribute a precise function to every component.

In a balanced diet the space destined to the simple sugars (sweet foods generally) is small: also according to the common opinion, in fact, "the sweets are bad". In reality, as for every food, sweets are neither good nor bad: everything depends on the quantities in relationship with the demands (or the problems) of the organism. And then there are sweets and there are sweets. Among the "sweets" honey is the richest of simple sugars and the only one that it owes all of its characteristics to nature (plants and bees) but it depends on how much is manipulated by man prior to its arrival at our table. The great advantage of honey is to be able to quickly bring ready calories to the organism, without demanding digestive trials and without supplying, at the same time, indigestible or harmful substances. From these attributes come the values for both those who are healthy or for those who are weak or ill.

For the athletes' nutrition or for those who are engaged in a physical exercise, it is advisable for prior, during and after, to favor the recovery of the body. Also for those who do not workout the body but the brain it is important to know that honey can also be useful: it is known in fact that the nervous system can develop only regularly its own functions if given the nutrition necessary as constant supply of glucose in the circulation. Between meals the decrease of the glucose in the blood (glicemia) will cause loss of lucidity, attention span, intellectual efficiency: a teaspoon of honey can restore instantly the mental functionality.

In the emaciated person (elderly, or those who lack appetite) or for the ill, nutrition becomes even more important: when someone is sick, for different motives, and not able to feed themselves, a small quantity of honey in a bit of water can provide some needed strength.

Honey therefore, it is a proper food for everybody. Or almost all: when, for example, a diet is already unbalanced for excess of sweets, adding honey is not recommended, while there might be some advantages in small quantities of honey to replace the sugary foods normally consumed. Besides honey is not advisable for those people that have metabolic sugar problems (diabetes), and for these honey should be taken only with the advice of a physician. For those who have to drastically reduce the level of ingested calories (obese under a weight loss treatment) it is advisable to be careful in the use of honey.

For those who have a tendency to gain weight, honey can be advantageous when used as sweetener instead of sugar. In fact the elevated content of fructose in all the honeys, and particularly of that of the locust flower, it is recognized as being a great sweetener.

Glucose is the sugar that is assimilated and enters the blood, if taken in excess. The honey of the locust flower and, generally, all the "liquid" honeys have a low content of glucose and a large content of fructose, the sugar that, instead is easily tolerated and is an immediate fountain of energy.

It is a sugar-rich secretion of certain plant-sucking insects such as aphids. Ants and wasps may eat honeydew, while honeybees gather it and process it into a dark, strong honey that is highly prized in parts of Europe and Asia for its reputed medicinal value.[1]

Since an infant's digestive juices are non-acidic, ingestion of honey creates an ideal medium for botulinum spores to grow and produce sufficient levels of toxins to cause infant botulism. For this reason, it is advised that neither honey, nor any other sweetener, be given to children under the age of 18 months. Once a child is eating solid food, the digestive juices are acidic enough to prevent the growth of the spores.